


Everything's Aces

by akire_yta



Series: promptfics - thunderbirds are go [76]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, different ways of being ace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 14:28:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8804482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: John wonders if he's been making too many assumptions





	

**Author's Note:**

> so @preludeinz and i were talking about ridley from TAG and while we both head canon them being friends, i have a head canon that she’s grey-ace, and prel has a head canon she’s a mother, and, well, these two head canons are not mutually exclusive, so *shrugs* Consider this part of me playing with all the different ways people can be asexual.

John knew it shouldn’t be this hard to get his mind around it.  Floating easily in the dome, Ridley waited for him to work through it, a small smirk on her face.

“You have kids,” John repeated slowly.

She nodded.  “Yes.  My husband wanted to be a father, and, well,” she shrugged.  “Let’s just say I wasn’t violently opposed.  He’s home with them now,” she added, her smirk softening into a fond little smile.  “He’s happy to be a dad, I’m happy to be an astronaut, and we’re happier together.”  She thought for a second.  “Even when we’re not, you know, actually together.”

John mentally backtracked and rewrote several months of assumption.  “I didn’t know you had a husband,” he tried, searching for a better approach angle.

She was watching him closely, a look in her eyes that implied she could read his mind.  John reflected, not for the first time, that Ridley O’Bannon was a remarkable woman.  “I do.  But a wedding ring doesn’t really fit under these,” she added, wiggling her gloved fingers.  Her smile grew even softer as she studied John’s face.  “He reminds me a lot of you, actually. When he was your age, you two would have been two peas in a pod.”

John knew she was trying to tell him something, but John felt gun-shy about assuming anything any more.  “Well, he sounds lovely,” John tried, and he sounded stiff and too-formal even to his own ears.

“He’s already invited you to dinner.”  She laughed, loud and easy, at John’s wide-eyed surprise.  “I’ve told him all about you.  My daughter Ellen,” she added, leaning in almost conspiratorially.  “Thinks you have the best job in the world.  Which hurts,” she continued, laying one gloved hand on the breastplate of her space suit.  “I was her hero until I told her about her Uncle John and the lives he saves from space.”

John had to smile at that. “Well, I’d love to meet her,” he said honestly.

“Excellent, let me know next time you’re dirtside and we’ll turn the porch light on.”  Ridley began to float towards the airlock.  “Besides,” she added, letting her legs swing with her momentum, her hand on the rim of the airlock holding her upper torso in position as she pivoted.  “I think it would do you good to meet more people like us.”

John’s eyes widened, but by the time he swallowed around the lump in his throat, the airlock had sealed.  He felt the thump through the bulkhead of her ship undocking.  He pushed off the wall, letting the energy carry him down to the ring.   As the sensation of gravity pulled his feet onto the glass of the ring, John caught sight of her shuttle as it rotated and orientated back towards Global One.  A flash of thrusters, and she was gone.

John held up his hand in mute farewell, watching until he couldn’t see her anymore.

Mind whirring with the implications, John returned to his tasks.


End file.
